Existential thinkings
The Teachings of Mistle Thrush and Kingfisher | Australian Journal of Environmental Education | Cambridge Core
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The Paradox of Connection
We often declare that everything is connected, but this very declaration keeps us conceptually apart. To be connected, we must first assume we are separate entities capable of disconnection. The ontological assumption underlying reconnection narratives is that disconnection is possible—that we can sever our ties to the... See more
We often declare that everything is connected, but this very declaration keeps us conceptually apart. To be connected, we must first assume we are separate entities capable of disconnection. The ontological assumption underlying reconnection narratives is that disconnection is possible—that we can sever our ties to the... See more
Disconnection: Why "Nature Connection" Keeps Us Stuck
Nietzsche burned early drafts. Michelangelo destroyed sketches. Leonardo left thousands of pages unfinished. The act of deletion is not a failure of recordkeeping. It is a reassertion of agency.
In design, we speak of subtraction as refinement. A sculptor chips away everything that is not the figure. A musician cuts a line that clutters the melody.... See more
In design, we speak of subtraction as refinement. A sculptor chips away everything that is not the figure. A musician cuts a line that clutters the melody.... See more
Joan Westenberg • I Deleted My Second Brain
aka what we refer to as ‘natural selection’, whereby reality is constantly deleting, revising, evloving, at the foaming edge of becomingness; no Hero’s journey of striving to Be The Best Self, just a love-driven exploration of what can be possible, to know ourself in every way, distilled by the pain and joy of existing; n’er static, (by definition it cannot be);
Merlin Donald, in his theory of cognitive evolution, argues that human intelligence emerged not from static memory storage but from external symbolic representation : tools like language, gesture, and writing that allowed us to rehearse, share, and restructure thought. Culture became a collective memory system - not to archive knowledge, but to... See more
Joan Westenberg • I Deleted My Second Brain
Contrary to popular belief, imagination means seeing things as they are , not as we want them to be. This is because imagination is actually a way of seeing. To invoke imagination is to draw on the entirety of who we are. It is to open all the doors of our perception and all our sense experience. And it requires us to respond to life with the... See more
My loyalty is to Imagination
Looking back on the bleak period when depression swept away the herons from the sky of his mind and voided the world of wonder, he reflects:
There are two paths to magic: Imagination and paying attention. Imagination is the fiction we love, the truths built of falsehoods, glowing dust on the water’s surface. Paying attention is about intentional... See more
Maria Popova • The Great Blue Heron, Signs vs. Omens, and Our Search for Meaning
Reflecting on the difficulty of interpreting his own life and on the myriad symbologies of the great blue heron — among them an ancient myth in which the bird dusts the surface of the water with golden starlight to attract bluegill — Anderson writes:
The heron is exactly what the heron is to you in the moment you choose to give it meaning. It will... See more
Maria Popova • The Great Blue Heron, Signs vs. Omens, and Our Search for Meaning
Life is the mirror life needs to understand ourself
Inebriation softens the connection between the spiritual and the material; easing the weight of Being in the material, but a risky path to tread it can lead to disconnection and disillusionment;